An Introduction to my “Mental Defect”
This is part of a series. For more please go to the Table of Contents.
If you are a normal person, by which I mean a person who’s sexual orientation and proclivities, straight or gay, fall somewhere within the “normal range” acceptable to 21st Century American Society — if you are that normal person then you are not my primary intended audience for this story, although you are quite welcome to read the story of my imprisonment, probation, and life as a registered sex offender. My real audience is other men like myself who have the same or a similar mental defect but who have not yet been caught up in America’s criminal justice system. This story is part of a larger project that I have started to see if any good can come out of my experience — if I can do anything to help other men stay out of the kind of trouble I am in right now. It’s one of those “if I can help just one other guy turn his life around, it will be worth it” kind of projects. If you think you may be part of my admittedly small intended audience, maybe you should read this story a little more closely than a normal person, and ask yourself if this is the future you want for yourself.
If you are a normal person there are certain things you can never know or understand. The reason isn’t because there is anything wrong with you — in fact, it’s because there is nothing wrong with you. One of the things you can never know or understand is what it’s like to grow up in a perfectly normal American suburb, raised to have all the normal American moral values, and believe in those moral values as much as any other American — only to find as you grow into adulthood that you have something inside you that violates those moral values, something you yourself find as repugnant as anyone else but can’t get rid of. After years of telling yourself, “Oh no, this can’t be me, I can’t be a pervert!”, or “Maybe this is just a stage I’m going through — I’ll grow out of it”, or trying and failing to set your mind right and make it all go away, you finally have to look at yourself in the mirror and admit the truth — this is not going away, you are not going to grow out of it, and the best thing you can say for yourself is, “Well, at least I haven’t done anything stupid and illegal yet!” You promise yourself never to do anything harmful to anyone, and figure out if there is some way to have what every American wants — a normal life.
Now that I am caught up in my state’s prison system and have met a few other inmates with charges similar to mine — child porn — or even worse, I can tell you that there are some guys continue to be in denial even after they are caught and sent to prison. Of course, the first step toward putting your life back together is admitting you have a problem. If you are part of my target audience I urge you to stop denying it, sooner rather than later.
In my case I came to this realization pretty early in life — in my early twenties, just as I was finishing up graduate school and getting ready to start my professional career. At that time I was involved with a youth group and had what looking back I consider to be a few “close calls,” i.e. interactions with children that the kids involved would not have thought of as sexual … but which I was getting aroused by. Once I matured enough to realize what was going on in my head I quit the youth group, I promised myself not to do anything harmful to anyone, never to get involved with any kind of youth organization or activity. Beyond that I was rudderless — I could have my career but could I ever have the “normal” love and family life I wanted? Well, the answer turned out to be yes — by the time I was thirty I had met my future wife, fell in love and shortly after that became a family man.
In hindsight I can see that the 1980’s, which was when I was most successful at building this perfectly normal American family life and career, also coincided with a fairly dry period in the availability of child porn in this country. And since part of my MO was to periodically be overcome by guilt and remorse and throw away any material I had and promise to do better, throughout the 1980’s I was nearly free from these temptations just at the time I was building my career, marriage, and family.
Then in the 1990’s along came the Internet with all of its easy access and seeming anonymity. I became a sucker for it early on, but even here I was beset by guilt and remorse and made a series of rules for myself — which I really did keep — to stay out of trouble:
· I never went to a “pay site”
· I never went to a password protected site
· I never posted material or participated in “file-sharing”
· I only went to open, moderated websites
· I never tried to contact or talk to any child on the internet.
And for a long time these rules really did keep me out of trouble — but not forever. Maybe I should have had a rule never to download anything. I convinced myself that as long as I followed all the other rules I’d never possess anything illegal. How wrong I was!
I am not blaming the internet for my problems. That would be like an alcoholic blaming the bottle, or a compulsive gambler blaming the slot machine. These things are inanimate objects that cannot harm you unless you already have a problem. I have nobody and nothing to blame but myself for my current situation.
I was bound to get into trouble sooner or later but I fooled myself over and over into thinking it wouldn’t happen — not to me. What an idiot I was! It is obvious to me now that if you are part of my real intended audience for this story you must be subject to the same internet temptations as I.
Therefore my advice to you, my target audience, is as clear as it is nearly impossible: You MUST get off the internet NOW, and stay off for the rest of your life.
“Oh that’s so easy for you to say, Z!” I hear you saying. “You are old enough to retire and let others do any of the minimal internet activity you may need to have done. I have to use the internet every day for my work, for banking, to make travel plans, etc., etc.! Life without the internet would be impossible in the 21st Century…”
To which I say, “OH WELL!!” You, dear target audience reader, have a choice to make. You are not a normal internet user. You know what the internet is doing to you — otherwise you wouldn’t be so interested in reading my story. Either get off the internet and stay off, or suffer the consequences which will be much worse than life without the Internet. I invite you to read my story and ask yourself if this the future you want. If your life is truly impossible, for economic reasons, without the internet, know that you will be like an alcoholic who has the added burden of a “friend” at his side all the time, pushing a bottle in his face. Good luck with that.
If you liked this article or any in this series, or if it spoke to you, or if you think others could benefit from it please recommend it or comment on it, or both.
